


Searching For Memeing

by typeos



Category: POKÉMON Detective Pikachu (2019)
Genre: Family, Humor, Memes, but by god will he try, harry goodman doesn't understand the youth, such is life, tim is a memer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 17:25:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18921652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typeos/pseuds/typeos
Summary: Harry Goodman doesn't know what a meme is.





	Searching For Memeing

Despite being an overworked forty something with no real social life besides his work acquaintances, Harry Goodman considers himself to be a funny guy.

Of course, his colleagues were more likely to call him a smart ass than anything else, but it is generally agreed upon that while Detective Goodman was one of Ryme City’s very best, he was also the precinct’s notorious Class Clown. thanks

Thank Arceus the nickname Detective Funnyman never caught on, what an uninspired mouthful that was.

However, one of the consequences of being a forty something with no real social life besides his work acquaintances also means that Harry ‘World Class Detective’ Goodman has no concept of Youth Culture ™ whatsoever.

Which, okay, that wasn’t a big deal a few weeks ago when his interactions with The Youth ™ were limited to the new recruits at the precinct, which wasn’t all that much considering how often he was out on the field, stopping crime and what not.

But now? With a formerly estranged twenty something son who just decided to finally give him a chance after foiling some rich evil dude’s plan while Harry was very much under the impression that he was a Pikachu?

Harry wished he somehow paid attention to the cultural movement that apparently passed him by because he has no idea what his son is actually saying.

In Tim’s defense, It’s not like he’s trying to be an indecipherable fixture in his life. When Tim converses with him, its friendly enough albeit a little stilted. Which is fair, considering their heck of a back story.

No, it’s in conversations where Harry isn’t actively taking part in that he finds himself at a loss.

He doesn’t mean to take a pause on his reports in favor of eavesdropping on his son’s phone calls ,but it’s been like what, a few weeks? Since the whole Chemical R debacle and him and Tim have made like, close to zero steps towards being a well adjusted family unit. He finds himself absorbing all the details he can about his son, taking what he can get. 

Also he was a detective, it was kind of second nature at this point.

“Jack.” Tim says from somewhere in the kitchen, “ I really really doubt T-posing would have helped me catch that Cubone, and also did you really need to call me just to say that?”

“ T-posing?” Harry whispers to himself because, what? Pikachu chirps in what he imagines to be an agreement to his confusion. Probably.

“ Yeah well,” He hears Tim reply to whatever this ‘Jack’ is saying “ I would have replied to your messages if I wasn’t Jared nineteen.”

Now, Harry would admit that he wasn’t the winner of the Father of The Year award by any stretch but he’d think he’d know if his son was in fact named Jared nineteen, he was present when the birth certificate was signed, thank you very much.

Then again, with how long they’d fallen out of touch...who knows.Harry’s saved from going into a moping spiral when his son steps into his field of vision.

“Yeah yeah, thanks for checking up on me.” His son says fondly, and Harry's thankful that his son has friends willing to look out for him “ Anyway you're blocked and reported, goodbye.”

Despite the... content of that farewell Harry's ears pick up laughter on the other end of the call when Tim decides to hang up.

“Huh.” Harry says to himself.

“Huh?” Tim replies, eyes snapping to his Harry's face in surprise.

A pause.

Harry Blinks. Tim blinks back.

Pikachu glances between them, wondering what kind of game this was.

“Oh, sorry.” Harry breaks first. “ I was just...thinking.”

Smooth Goodman, real smooth.

Tim squints at that, clearly suspicious. Which is fair all things considered.

“ Right...” Tim replies “ Anyway, I'm heading out for a bit, You want anything? Besides a Coffee anyway.”

Now wasn't that a loaded question?

There was a number of things he could say in response to that. 'I'd like it if we could have a conversation that lasted longer than a few minutes despite the both of us clearly trying our best’ would be a good one or maybe ‘ A redo of the last decade would be nice.’

“ You got it in one kid.” He says instead, because he’s a coward . “ See you later.”

“Cool, cool, cool.” Tim replies, which Harry supposes...is cool, squatting down to give Pikachu a few pets before he goes. 

He tries to focus on his paperwork after Tim leaves but he can't help wondering what the hell the phrase 'Jared 19’ is supposed to mean.

If that had been the end of that, Harry wouldn't have minded his ignorance of his son's vocabulary so much. Of course, things in Harry's life never did have the inclination to run quite so smooth.

Lucy’s a sweet kid, if not slightly prone to arson,and he’s forever thankful that she’d been dedicated enough to the journalistic pursuit of truth, because if not for her Harry may very well have never reverted back to human form.

He’s glad his son has a friend his age to hang out with, It’s just when Lucy and Tim are together however, that he really feels his ignorance...and his age.

See, If the two of them aren't showing each other pictures on their phones, they do this thing where it feels like they’re performing a parts of a play that they’ve rehearsed time and time again.Except the plays they’ve seemingly decided to perform make no sense whatsoever.

Like that one weekend where the three of them went with Tim to check out Rhyme City’s police academy, moral support and all. They passed by a road that was being repaired on the way, which prompted Lucy to say “Road work ahead?” which Tim replied to with “ I sure hope it does.”

Which okay, he could understand the gist of that conversation. It’s the way they had nodded at each other after the exchange, like an unspoken rule had been fulfilled, that had him wondering at what the hell was considered polite social etiquette between the youth.

He's still thinking about that one time he walked into Tim and Lucy flipping water bottle after water bottle on his kitchen table.

Kids these days.  
~

“Detective Goodman.” Lieutenant Yoshida says as he passes by his desk at the precinct, jolting Harry from the computer screen he was intently reading. “ Is there a reason for your current preoccupation with...T-posing?”

The constant white noise of the rustling of papers, conversation, and the pitter pattering of pokemon in the office quiets down, informing Harry of the spotlight currently on him.

“Uhm.” Harry replies. “ Absolutely?”

“And that reason is?” The good lieutenant asks him.

“I'll…” Harry starts. “Tell you when I figure that out?”

In Harry's defense, it was turning out to be an extremely slow work day and he had to do something.

Lieutenant Yoshida squints at him, really gives him the ol Patented Hide Yoshida staredown. Harry tries not to let this, plus his co workers curious looks, get to him

Harry stares back, because how was he supposed to explain this-

“Tim mentioned T-posing.” Lieutenant Yoshida states, solemnly. “ And now you're looking up what that means on the internet to give you insight into the mind of your son as a way to mend the relationship between the two of you.”

If Harry was drinking coffee at that moment he would have chokee, luckily for all parties involved he reached his precinct mandated quota of cups an hour ago.

“I'm a father to a Youth myself,” Lieutenant Yoshida says and at this point Harry isn't sure if he's being serious or pulling his leg. “ And I believe my current experience will be of use to you, Detective Goodman.”

“Okay?” Harry replies, because what else could he say to that. He’s almost certain this was the Lieutenant’s way of disciplining him for googling mysterious unrelated young person rituals while on the clock.

Almost.

“Oh my god.” Detective Morales,one of the newer, younger, members of the squad, interrupts. “Are you guys talking about memes?”

All hell breaks loose after that.

Soon the precinct is divided into two distinct groups. Group A consisting of those who know what a meme is and Group B consisting of those who don't know what the hell members of Group A are talking about.

Harry is gratified to see that Group B, his group, is the larger of the two. This fact however, does very little to make what comes next any easier, which is a crash course on all things social media and apparently Memes ™ .

Harry Goodman isn’t an adult who withers in the face of a computer despite his preference for good old physical paper when it comes to research. Harry isn’t totally oblivious to social media either, he isn’t a caveman thank you very much...he just never had the time to do much on it.

It is absolutely the strangest briefing he has ever been party too, by far. Apparently the Internet was where the cultural movement his son was part of took place, and was there a hell of a lot of it.

Detective Morales gives them the briefest intro course he can because apparently there was just too much too fit in reasonable and also because while the good Lieutenant Yoshida was willing to have this debriefing for the sake of 'being a more informed, therefore more efficient precinct.’ he wasn't about to let the squad talk about the internet the whole working day.

All taking place around his desk, because he started it. Joy.

That intro course turns out to be an explanation on memes, or what the younger detectives consider the easiest meme form to explain, which turns out to be some kind comic.

If comics were just vague contextless images with text lazily pasted on. Harry can understand it though.

“Vines on the other hand.” Morales states “ are a whole nother can of worms, but you guys can just watch video compilations on youtube or something. There are like literally a hundred to choose from.”

“Surely that has to be an exaggeration?” Harry asks, but the members of Group A just give him this weird knowing look which he just can't abide.

Later, Harry returns home from work, situates himself right on the sofa, and decides to look up these ‘vine compilations” on his phone. It turns out Detective Morales was in fact not at all exaggerating, joy. And while he does find a lot of them,bewildering, he can at least admit to the addictive quality of the fast paced humor.

But still, bewildering. So bewildering are these videos that Harry doesn't notice his Son walking into the room.

“Are you watching Vine compilations?” Tim's asks, perplexed.

“Oh sh-” Harry's phone nearly flies of his grasp, but he manages to recover.

Tim blinks.

“Uhm.” Harry replies. “Yes...yes I am watching vine compilations.”

“Oh.” Tim says.

His son has this look on his face that tells Harry that he wants to press on the matter, probably wants to ask his father how he even knew what they were.

“Well.” Tim says instead “ I'll be in my room if you need me.”

Before Tim turns to leave, Harry decides to stop beating around the bush.

“I uh-” Harry begins. “ I maybe, kind of, got curious about what the kids these days were up to, tried to look some of these 'memes’ things up and I gotta say you guys have a wild imagination.”

He knows he's babbling, but despite all this time he never did learn how to deal with The Emotions ™ properly. 

“Oh.” Tim repeats himself and Harry can't even find it in himself to judge him for that, Oh indeed.

It's at this point that Harry's sure he just made things even more awkward. Which, okay how was they even possible when- 

“You know.” Tim says as he scratches behind his ear. “You could have asked me, I can try to explain it to you.”

Such a simple solution to his problems...and yet.

“I didn't wanna trouble you.” Harry replies, his own hand moving to scratch a spot on his chin. 

“Nah, it wouldn't be any trouble.” His son smiles at him, before moving to take the spot next to him on the sofa. “ Besides, I wouldn't pass down an opportunity to school a 'World Class Detective.”

Harry snorts at that, the smartass. Like father like son he supposes.

“In that case.” Harry starts “What the hell is a T-pose.”

Tim's laughter at his question is absolutely worth all the suffering he had to endure at that stupid briefing.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in one night after i was thinking about vines in the pokemon universe apologies


End file.
